Moving In Together: Style Brainstorming

There are so many things to discuss before you move in with someone, but one of the most fun — and potentially fraught — is: what will your home look like? As I've been putting the wheels in motion for my upcoming move, I've also been squirreling away images, things I like, things we'd like, the starting points for a discussion on what goes where and how we live...

I started this process quite a while ago, with my Organized Inspiration Binders. I have two binders for Recipes — one Sweet, one Savory — and one for Fashion, but it's the Home and Garden binders that come into play here (slides 1, 2, 7, and 8). They're chock full of ideas I love, things I'd love to make or find someday. While I'm greatly looking forward to presenting these notebooks to my housemate-to-be and poring over them together, they felt incomplete.

Starting with my Someday, Someday Dream Home Style, I've also been collecting digital images, but clicking endlessly, huddled around my laptop, seems much less fun that flipping through notebooks (around the kitchen table, with wine and candles, I imagine) so I'm printing them out. So far I have three pages done — shown above — Common Space, Bedroom, and Kitchen. They represent just a small fraction of the styles I'm drawn to, styles I think would suit us, but they're a jumping-off point for discussions. I would move into some of the images if I could, while some have a single element I love, or a feel I like, even if I would change all the particulars.

How do you and your partner brainstorm design ideas? Do you point out things you love when you're in restaurants and other people's homes, do you collect images like I do, or do you just spontaneously hash it out in the paint aisle?